Cursed Tea Pots and Other Unfortunate Happenings
by dreaminwriter
Summary: Dresden Files AU: Dean is a warlock who tries to make ends meet in whatever way he can, whether it's through his magic shop or through consulting jobs with his brother Sam, a detective in the Paranormal Investigations Unit of the Chicago PD. After a sharp rise in the crime rate and a series of strange robberies, the PIU gets a new member, Castiel Novak, and there's more to this wei
1. Chapter 1

The sunlight streaming through his window was brutal. It cut a hot bright light across the sheets where the curtains had been pulled back during last night's activities. Goddammit, his mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton balls from the dentist, and his head throbbed every time he blinked his eyes in the harsh glare of the afternoon sun. The .45 that usually rested under the pillow was lodged behind his right shoulder, the hard metal of the hammer digging into the skin there. Beside him a man snored heavily, the dark navy of the sheets slung low over his hips. He was handsome enough. He slept on his stomach, right arm crooked below his head, ginger hair cropped short. The hard angles of his shoulders rippled even as he slept, and Dean considered rolling over and pressing his lips to the freckles that spread across his pale skin but thought better of it. He climbed out of bed careful not to disturb the sleeping man.

_Just easier not to create any awkward situations. _

_What the fuck happened last night?_

Outside of his bedroom, the stink of beer and salty sex was strong. The floor was littered with discarded clothing and empty cans. He grimaced, _light beer._ His scrying glass was still lying out on the coffee table underneath a cardboard box containing a half-eaten cheese pizza. If he or Bobby hadn't made an effort to hide it, the guy sleeping in his bed must be aware of the craft. He knew better to look for a wallet with some identification. True names were where the power was, and no warlock worth his salt was going to carry around a driver's license.

He flipped on the coffee pot and dug in the cabinet for the hangover remedy he'd brewed a week ago, taking out two just in case. Just as the coffee pot was-noisily- finishing its cycle, Dean heard a light whooshing sound behind him like the fluttering of a curtain in an open window. "What in the seven hells is wrong with you, boy?"

"You're in a good mood this morning, Bobby. Wake up on the wrong side of your skull?"

"Oh ha-ha, idjit. You think you're the only person that lives here? I've heard and seen some debase things in my time, boy, but you and your company last night about took the cake."

"As a matter of fact, Bobby, I am the only one who _lives_ here, and I don't see how it's any of your business who I invite over," Dean grumbled, sipping on his scalding coffee. "Or what we do once they get here."

Bobby paced back and forth between the refrigerator and the stove, smiling in that infuriating way that said, _I'm a 300 year old spirit without corporeal form, and I know more than you._

"What?" Dean asked. _I'm getting real tired of your shit, man._

"So you know who's sleeping in your bed, right? Because I sure as hell do, and the mess you're in, it ain't pretty."

Dean desperately wished that he'd put on pants before leaving his room. He felt so damn _exposed_ standing there in his boxers while Bobby was fully dressed and smirking. The only sounds in the room were the muffled snoring from the bedroom and the soft humming of the wards lining the windows and door frames. It had taken him three weeks after moving in to get a manageable set of wards going, painted in ash and lamb's blood and alkyd paints, and even then, he hadn't been able to entirely quiet the way that they hummed and whispered to one another when the apartment was silent. Dean let out the breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. "No, man, I have no idea who that guy is, and I was kinda banking on him not knowing either."

Bobby laughed, a big noise that caused his form to shimmer in the light of the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. "Fat chance of that. That's Dennis Subtle, the newest member of the White Council. He stepped in when Dubrot's old witch finally did him in. The Other Realm's buzzing with questions about him, came outta nowhere."

"Awesome. That's awesome." _Shitshitshit._

"I suppose it's too much to assume that you've been keeping your head down and minding their Seven Laws?" Dean stared into the dregs of his coffee in response. "I thought as much. You've gotta get him out of here." When Dean didn't move, Bobby made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "Go now, idjit. Before you do anymore damage."

When Dean had cracked open the door to the bedroom, Bobby said, "And stick to mortals for awhile." Then there was another flutter of curtain, and the living room behind him was empty.

Detective Sam Winchester was flooded with cases. They lined the edges of his desk; they spilled out onto the floor. He took them home and piled them in the corner of the living room until even the dog had started to complain about their presence in the house. There was something weird going on in Chicago. Crime had been on a steady rise for the past decade, not wavering, not up then down then up again. No, a steady gradual mountain of weird-ass crimes was growing in the city, and he hadn't the faintest clue where to begin.

Well, that wasn't entirely true.

He suspected it had something to do with Dean's area of expertise. Why else had so many ancient tea pots and sugar chests and dusty old volumes gone missing? Even in the realm of white collar crime, those weren't hot ticket items. The whole thing made his head hurt, and he held his Styrofoam cup of green tea to his temple while he tried to figure out where in this minefield of research he wanted to start today. Last time he'd spoken to Dean on the phone, he'd said, the thief was targeting uncatalogued cursed items. Bobby thought they'd been flying under the radar because they were low energy items. They obviously hadn't killed too many people, or the Council would have seen the red flags. He'd said something else, something about an extraction ceremony.

Sam picked up the phone and dialed his brother's number.

Voicemail. _Hey, it's Dean. Do your thing._

"Dean, man, get your ass out of bed and call me back." Sam pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and then got up and walked to the open door of his office. "Hey, Jess."

"Hmm," she hummed, looking up from the paperwork spread out on her desk.

"You know anything about extraction ceremonies?"

She stared back at him incredulously. One of her blonde curls strayed into her line of sight, and she pushed it back with a huff. "No," she said impatiently. "Unless that's something that you do with a facemask, I'm pretty sure I don't know anything about _extraction ceremonies_. Did you try calling Dean?"

"Yeah, he didn't pick up."

"What a surprise." She turned back to her work. "The new guy should be here soon. He's weird."

"This whole city's weird, Jess; you're going to have to be a little more specific."

Sam leaned against the door frame and watched her enter numbers into the computer, double-checking them against a file before she said, "I don't think he's used to human interaction. He just stares a lot and says crazy stuff. He told me to watch the bees the first time that I met him, said that the bees would tell me what I wanted to know."

"Did they?" Sam asked with a laugh.

"Hell if I know. I don't want to get close enough to one to find out."

"Well, send him in when he gets here. I'm going to dig through some old case files and see if I can find any patterns."

"Sure thing. I'll ask Steve in Archives if he knows anything. Maybe they had a case like this before Paranormal Investigations was established." Sam headed back into the office, back to the mountain of paperwork, but through the day he kept thinking of that stray curl falling and Jess' delicate hand reaching up to tuck it behind her ear.


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel was on assignment from heaven for the first time in over a millennia. His last tour involved a long-haired carpenter from Bethlehem with a penchant for metaphor. That had not gone as well as planned. Dealings with humanity never did.

It felt good to stretch, to be solid, to be contained within a set space with clear outlines. The cosmos were always whirling, matter from his grace always flying off into space, little bits of star getting caught in the sticky spots along the edge. There was something so finite about walking among his father's _other_ children, about watching the bees fly in patterns from hive to flower to tree to hive again, around and around in a pre-determined motion. He stood outside of the police department and followed the path of a bright yellow finch with his eyes as it flitted from windowsill to telephone line and back again. Time passed.

"Mr. Novak?" A blonde woman stood on the concrete stairs, concern in her wide eyes, but also, a deep loneliness like in all things. "Do you remember me? I'm Jessica Moore. We talked on the phone."

Castiel nodded the head of his vessel. This was a sign of agreement. "I told you to watch the bees."

"Yeah, sorry, it's on my to-do list. Detective Winchester's waiting for you in his office." Something about Castiel's vessel made this woman nervous. The lines around her eyes shifted, wrinkling and twitching. Her hands moved constantly. He followed her into the narrow, stuffy darkness of the building.

Detective Winchester's office was at the far back in a place that held some importance like the inner sanctum of a temple he had visited once when he was here before. Humans positioned rooms in a certain way to signal status. This was an important place. The man that he was supposed to meet had long brown hair and heavy shoulders. He towered over Castiel's vessel. The blonde woman rapped her twitching hands on the glass of the open door. "Sam, Agent Novak's here to see you."

Sam looked up. "Yeah, sure, of course. Have a seat, agent. Just move those files onto the floor if you don't mind."

Castiel sat in the hard wooden chair across the mountain of papers and waited for the man with the weight on his shoulders to say something.

"I'm Detective Winchester. You can just call me Sam." Castiel nodded at this. Another sign of agreement. "So you've been briefed on the case, right?" Sam tried to maintain eye contact while simultaneously reading a briefing on his desk.

"Yes. Significant magical artifacts have gone missing from stores in Chicago. You think it may be an extraction ceremony."

"Right. So get this, I spoke with my brother," Sam paused a moment and shuffled some papers around. "He's a department consultant. Anyway, he says an extraction ceremony is where the person removes the stored magical energy in an object and transfers it to a storage container for another use. Like charging a battery." Castiel had no idea why the man was telling him this. He was an angel of the Lord. There was little that went unnoticed from the eyes of Heaven. When the agent didn't volunteer any incite, Sam continued, "We called in your agency because frankly we're practically the forefront of the Paranormal Investigative field in the country, and we're out of leads on this one. The FBPI said you could help, that you were one of the best."Castiel felt that something was expected of him. Nodding seemed to work. Humans found it acceptable. He tried that. "How would you proceed with the case?" Sam pushed.

"I would interview the former owners of the magical artifacts to ascertain whether they had any further knowledge."

"Already been done." Sam pulled a thick manila envelope from a teetering pile on the filing cabinet and handed it to Castiel. "Standard interview with any triggering answers followed up by the appropriate questions, and EMF scans, sulfur searches, silver, holy water, salt, the whole shebang. They were all clean."

"None of the antique stores are magical emporiums?" This was more of a statement then a question, and he did not wait for Sam to answer. "Your thief is human."

"No fingerprints or DNA left behind at the scene that could be used for scrying." Sam gestured to the folder, no doubt wanting Castiel to examine the forms upon forms of unsuccessful testing. "No psychic readings left either. We checked."

"If the thief's true name was hidden, none of that would be present." Castiel tried to thread patience into his voice. The other angels had stressed the importance of patience in a world of finites, but it was so hard to fight the call to rush, to shortchange the information.

"So, an Other Realmer, then. Great. That's out of our jurisdiction." Sam picked up the black receiver of the phone on his desk and began to enter numbers into it. "Let me see if I can get my brother. He's going to know who to talk to about this. Just wait one second." Castiel waited. Listening to the _beeps _on the other end of the line, and finally, _Hey, it's Dean. Do your thing._ Sam snapped down the receiver and looked up with apology on his face. He glanced at the clock. "Sorry about that. I'm sure you're tired from your drive. We'll regroup tomorrow morning after you've had a chance to settle in and look over the case again." The weight on his shoulders was somehow heavier than it had been before the phone call. There was anxiety stinking up the air. Something was wrong.

"Tomorrow, then," Castiel said, and grabbing the proffered files from the top of the stack walked from the important room in the far back of the building.

Steve in Archives was a mouth-breather who perpetually smelled like Philly cheesesteak and desperation. Jessica hated going down there to fetch anything, having to turn down Steve's offer to carry the ridiculously heavy boxes up the basement stairs because he would grab her ass or follow the movements of her body with his eyes in a way that screamed, "Creeper!" Today was no exception.

She found him in the small cubicle of the archives browsing _Busty Asian Beauties_. His red hair plastered to his face. He grinned when he saw her walk in and stowed the magazine under the table. "Jessica! What can I do for you?" His grin stretched too wide, and he began to resemble a crocodile waiting for its prey.

"Sam sent me down here to ask if you have any unsolved cases that resemble the ones he's working on now. Series of robberies, antique and thrift stores, low ticket items, mostly domestic stuff, tea pots, books." Steve stared appreciatively at the rise and fall of her chest as she spoke.

"Can't think of anything. I'll have to get back to you. Unless you wanna look yourself." Jess glanced at the narrow rows of metal shelving and cardboard filing boxes pressed in the tight space, imagined her pressed in, reading through some file when Steve the mouth-breather decides to get a notion.

"No, sorry. I have to go back to meet Agent Novak when he gets here." Jess wrote down the specifics of her request, ranging the dates to any files that pre-dated PIU. "Thanks for your help."

As she was retreating, she heard him shout, "Hey, wanna go out sometime?"

"Sorry," she shouted back. "Not interested," and ran up the stairs.

There was something seriously wrong with Agent Novak, she determined. He'd been standing unmoving on the sidewalk for 10 minutes, eyes trained on a bird on a telephone line. "Mr. Novak, do you remember me? I'm Jessica Moore. We talked on the phone."

"I told you to watch the bees."

_Yes, _she thought. _And I've been trying to forget it for a week. Werewolves and wendigos and witches, I got, but you are one weird dude._ "Yeah, sorry, it's on my to-do list. Detective Winchester's waiting for you in his office. Jess walked in to the cool space of the police department, glad to be away from the prying eyes of the street. Agent Novak walked slowly, stopping to gaze intently at bulletin boards and copiers and the broken coffee maker as if each item held a special meaning. Jess felt overcome with relief when they finally made it to Sam's door. She tapped on the glass twice and mumbled, "Sam, Agent Novak's here to see you," before she skirted around the agent with the dead eyes. _Let Sam deal with him._


	3. Chapter 3

It took exactly 11 minutes to convince Dennis Subtle that he had a meeting with his brother that morning, followed by 10 minutes of awkward movement, as Dennis pissed and gathered his clothes. All 10 of which Dean spent staring at the carpet and smoking a Camel. He absentmindedly scratched at his anti-possession tattoo with his free hand. Bobby lurked in the shop below, laughing his ass off. When the red-headed man, had finally exited the bathroom looking completely unruffled, Dean smiled and said half-heartedly, "I'll call you, yeah?"

"Of course," Dennis replied. "Only, no phones in the Other Realm, so you best just send a note." The man's accent was thick, a coastal drawl that ebbed and flowed in a lilt like the ocean tide. His voice distracted Dean with memories of the two of them sitting on the couch, the old mirror he used as a scrying glass balanced on their knees as they chugged beer. The guy's fingers, long and pale, spider legs skittering around the edge of the frame. _He had very talented hands, had wrapped them in the short hairs on the back of his head as Dean rode his cock, knees crooked around the man's sides. The wards humming and whispering to each other in the midnight air._

"Awesome. I'll see ya." Dennis exited the back door of the apartment, and Dean watched as he descended the splintered stairs gracefully, unperturbed by the way they bowed and shook against his weight. There was a loud pop, and the man had disappeared. _Shitshitshit._

Bobby was waiting for him in the store below, trying to roll a water witch's staff off of a dusty shelf in the corner. "Your brother has called twice." He watched as Dean ignored him and went about opening the store for the afternoon. "It's probably about that case." Dean didn't respond. "Might be worth some money. God knows you need it. Look at this place." Bobby waved a ghostly hand around the expanse of the storefront.

"Sammy can take care of himself, for a moment. I'm a little busy," Dean said.

"Oh well, excuse me, princess. I hadn't noticed. Listen, boy, it's not Sam's fault that you can't keep your dick to yourself. Dennis Subtle ain't going anywhere, and this case is big. We need to fight this fire before the White Council gets wind of uncatalogued cursed items going missing."

"Remind me why I bought you at that yard sale again?" There was a whip of curtains in the wind, and Dean was alone once more. _Touchy subject_.

A client had come in earlier in the week, a young mother, wanting a protection amulet for her son to wear to school. Her eyes deep blue and desperate as she clung to his arm and begged him to protect her son from whatever it was that was after him, that caused him to come home at night bruised and afraid. He hadn't had the heart to tell her that short of some of the more powerful bone spells, off-limits black magic, nothing was going to protect him from other kids, but money was money, so Dean set about gathering the supplies for the spell, fishing an old Spanish coin from the box of knick-knacks he kept to use as pendants. The sigils were simple enough, a few short lines in cordwood ash and an incantation or two. Dean was fiddling with the leather strap he was using as a cord, measuring out a healthy length of it, when his cell phone started ringing. He looked over to check the number. _Sam, again._

"Yep."

"What the hell, man? I've called you three times." Dean threaded the leather cord though the hole he'd drilled in the silver coin careful not to disturb the newly drawn sigil.

"I've been busy."

"Right. What's his name?" Dean winced. _The less Sam knew about his White Council problems, the better._

"Why's it always gotta be about that? I've got a client, Sammy. Crying mothers, terrified babies, protection amulet, the whole deal."

The sound of Sam sighing heavily rushed out of the speaker. "Whatever. Listen, I _need_ you to work on the tea pot case today. I've got some Fed on my ass now-"

"Taking after me now, huh?"

"-and I have to produce results or Chief will hang me out to dry so fast, it isn't funny," Sam finished irritably.

"What do you want me to do? There aren't any leads."

"This Fed, Special Agent Novak is his name, real weird guy, he says the thief's true name is masked. That's why we can't get any readings. Might be an Other Realmer, but that's out of our jurisdiction." Sam paused for a moment. _Waiting for me to interrupt, I'm sure._ "I thought you could look into it."

"Hell no. Have you heard anything I've told you about the White Council? They're politicians, Sam. Ruthless, blood sucking. Some of them actually are blood sucking. Dubrot would have rather drained me than looked at me."

"Please, man. This department gets enough shit as it is. Chief's not convinced that we don't pull wendigos and rugarus out of our ass sometimes. He still denies that we need a Paranormal Investigation Unit."

Dean heaved a breath, rubbing his temples. The hangover remedy hadn't reached full potency; he must've cut the brew time too short; there was still the faintest remnant of a headache knocking around in his skull. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks. I owe you one."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm parking my bike on the sidewalk from now on."

* * *

Sam hated stakeouts. The greasy junk food bags piled up in the back seat of the cruiser, the waiting, the meaningless conversation about who was sleeping with who in the department or did you see that game last night? It was all too slow. At least with research, there was an undercurrent of anticipation. Kia had been parked outside of the glittery front of 5th and Main Antiques since 4 am, and she looked ready to pull her hair out when he got in the car.

"This is bullshit," she said before he'd even sat down. "You know this is bullshit."

"See anything?"

"Of course not." She ran a dark finger over the curve of her bottom lip as if gathering her words, trying to decide how much it was safe to say. Sam mentally prepared himself. "I'm not saying I'm not happy to have the job, but this is one step above desk duty."

"It's all part of the job, Kia. We've all done stakeouts."

"Yeah, but you've done _other stuff_. This is just some misogynistic bullshit, and you know it. Chief has had it out for me since I dated Charlie."

Sam chuckled. "You shouldn't have gone out with his daughter. You're smarter than that."

Kia shrugged. "Couldn't help it. She was hot."

"Right, anybody in there?" He pointed to the store across the road.

"Just the employees."

"I'm going in to look around." Sam crossed the street at a quick pace and ducked into the store, the door opened wide to let the cool evening air flow into the old building. 5th and Main was one of the ritzier antique markets in downtown Chicago, specializing in small domestic items and antique jewelry. It had been low on the list of suspected targets because the price tag was so far above average, but after a preliminary scan, they'd found wonky EMF readings, a few that were high enough to be flags. The readings had concentrated on a display case against the right hand wall, filled with Victorian spoon bracelets.

The place was brightly lit and inviting, even in the fading sunlight, and the old man behind the counter in the tweed suit smiled when he walked in. "How can I help you, Detective?"

"Anything suspicious?"

The old man shook his head, his silver hair glinting in the warm glow from the crystal chandeliers on display above them. "Just the regulars came in today."

"You mind if I look around in the back?"

The man shrugged and gestured to a door behind the counter. "Be my guest."

The back of the store was narrow and tidy. There was an office and a heavy metal door that led to the alley behind it. Stepping out into the dark of the alley, Sam accessed the surroundings. A dumpster to the right of the door piled to the brim with garbage from the Chinese restaurant next door, an empty stack of cardboard moving boxes stacked against the brick wall opposite. The alley was deserted except for a rat rummaging around among the garbage bags. The sound of scuttling feet faintly apparent under the current of traffic on the street beyond. A fire escape from the apartments above the Chinese restaurant dangled out over the alley, the black ladder raised at the moment. Sam could see a tomato plant hanging from the window of the third floor apartment. He turned to go back into the store when something on the door frame caught his eye. Stuffed above the door frame was a leather pouch, a hex bag maybe, but this didn't look like any hex bag he had ever seen. A large copper star fastened as a clasp on the front, and the inside was filled with what looked pomegranate seeds and maybe jimson weed. He'd have to double check to be sure. The other plants were indistinguishable. No coin to charge the spell. He was just putting it in an evidence bag when the sound of gunshots rang out from inside the store.


	4. Chapter 4

The hotel room that the company issued was stark. The polyester floral bedding felt slick under his vessel's fingertips, and the air conditioner rattled in a grating metal on metal noise. The room was stagnant with latent emotions, all of the possibility and impossibility gathered in one place. He flipped on the bedside lamp to watch it play shadows against the wall. There was a mouse living in the space behind the bed. He listened to its heartbeat for awhile, the soft scratch of claws on carpet. The shadows moving in patterns as the light outside shifted through the half open curtains.

Considering Castiel's last assignment started out in a barn, he didn't have room to complain. He did not require sleep and preferred to pray and receive orders out in nature, but it was part of the cover. Other things slept, and so must he.

The thick files that he had taken from Detective Winchester's office lay beside him on the bed. He did not browse through them; there was no need. All of this had been shown to him before he left heaven.

After some time had passed, there was a rush of wings in the air, and his brother Harut stood in front of the television, an unreadable look in his brown eyes. His clothes were tattered and dusty, a stained Carhart jacket over faded blue jeans. "It has been a long time, brother."

Castiel shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "Babylon was not so long ago."

Harut smiled. His tan face scrunched and worn. "I have come the long way. Time moves more slowly when you are away from heaven."

Silence permeated the air of the room until it had seeped into every corner. Only then did Castiel feel it was safe to break it. "Are you aware of the robberies?"

"I had heard something about that." Harut paced, marking the space with the length of his strides. "One hears all manner of things in the Other Realm."

Castiel did not like the way his brothers often used doublespeak to mask their true intentions. It irritated his paladin sensibilities. Honesty was all that was required. "Such as?"

"Such as, there's a new head to the White Council. A warlock named Dennis Subtle. Rumor is he's a known practitioner of Black Magic."

He sighed. "That's hardly Heaven's concern."

"It is if you knew what kind of spells he's supposedly doing, brother. Using Obeah to call down miracles."

"Heaven deals in miracles."

"Yeah, only none of the energy is coming from Heaven, or from Hell either. No one knows where it's coming from."

"Are you suggesting this has to do with the robberies?"

Harut bent over to examine a landscape painting on the wall and tapped his finger against the glass. "Tea pots and books and spoon bracelets? You really think there's enough energy in any of that to perform a miracle?"

"Souls, then?"

His brother shrugged. "Maybe. I'm still looking into it."

"Why?"

"Have you been outside? Looked around? This place is a festering shithole, brother. You get it in your head that you want this. That you want lust and happiness, real debaucheries and sin, but it's too much. I've been here too long. I want back in, and if I can figure out this Dennis Subtle guy, maybe I can do that."

This made no sense. "How are you going to do that?"

"Actually," Harut scratched at the leg of his blue jeans. "I was hoping you could help me with that. The consultant on the case, Dean Winchester. He's a warlock, and he and Dennis, they had a moment-"

"I don't understand."

"They spent the evening in each other's company. If you want into the Other Realm, to get close to Dennis, Dean Winchester's the only way to do it. Over two millennia with these people and they still don't trust me," Harut sighed and rubbed his temples. "This Dennis guy is dangerous, brother. Truly dangerous."

Castiel turned away from him and watched the shadows play on the drawn curtains. "You have no faith, Harut. They are only men."

The silence stretched long and thin. "We shall see, Castiel. We shall see." A loud flutter of wings cut through the air, and he was gone. Castiel spent the night watching the light shift in the room.

* * *

Sam Winchester was a problem. A big problem. He was growing his hair far past regulation length, and that too was a problem because he had taken to using this floral shampoo, and if he leaned over Jessica's shoulder to put a file on her desk or to point out something on the computer screen, she could smell it, strong and unmistakable, lavender and jasmine wafting over her. The rules on interoffice romance were clear. That's why she was sitting on a bar stool next to Kia, watching the smoke from her friend's cigarette waft over her draft beer.

"I still can't believe it," Kia said, flicking the long stub of ashes from her Marlboro. "That guy came out of nowhere." She'd just finished telling the story. She and Sam had been on a stakeout all day. 5th and Main Antiques run by an old guy, Phillip, and his wife. The two of them heard gunshots and had barreled in to a scene of Phillip laying in a pool of his own blood. The room was empty. "He shit himself, you know. Sam said they do that a lot. I didn't know." She downed the finger of whiskey she'd been drinking and tapped the bar for another.

"I'm sorry, darling. I don't know what to say to that." She ran her finger over the lip of the Blue Moon, tracing the edge of the glass.

"I'll be ok. Just shook up." The two of them sat for a moment and watched the bartender measure out the contents of an amaretto sour for a woman on the far end. Somewhere in the background the jukebox kicked on Heart's crooning "Magic Man." Kia scoffed, "Fucking ladies' night."

"How's Sam taking this?" Jess tried to ask nonchalantly. From the look in her friend's eyes, she could tell she hadn't succeeded.

"He thinks it's his fault, and probably mine. I didn't ask." She paused before adding, "You should go over there."

"Yeah, right," Jess replied and ordered another beer. "Let's dance."


	5. Chapter 5

Sam Winchester was well and truly drunk for the first time since his college graduation when Dean had bought that gallon of whiskey with the plastic handle. _The old man's blood had soaked through his tweed dress pants, by the time the crime scene photographer was done, the body had started to go stiff and stick to the hardwood flooring of the antique store._

The worst part about it was how _normal_ it had seemed. No missing heart or half-eaten body. No signs of sulfur or EMF or vampiric wounds. Just Phillip, gunshot wound to the head, with his wife crying in a corner of the room. If it hadn't been for the fact that there was no sign of the perp, Sam would have written it off as a standard armed robbery, a tragedy in any respect, but only the spoon bracelets were missing, the entire case cleared out in a matter of moments.

_Kia had been watching the front door. 'Told ya, Sam; I didn't see anything. I swear. I was the only one to come through that door.'_ _And what reason did she have to lie?_

Buddy came up and laid his head on Sam's knee, nudging until he absentmindedly scratched him behind the ears. The golden retriever had been pacing the room and occasionally stopped to glance at him worriedly before sinking down on his haunches or starting back up again. He'd refused to eat the organic dog food. Sam came home to an overturned bowl of it on the kitchen floor. Case files still glared ominously from the dinette table.

He was too drunk to care.

The tv flipped through the motions, late night talk shows, infomercials, crude cartoons. It didn't make any sense.

_'Are you sure you didn't see anything?'_

_ 'Just blood.' Blood flowing, the headwaters of a great river basin, but he didn't say that. _

_'And you wrote down everything in the report?' _

_'I told you, I was tagging the hex bag when I heard the shots. Ran inside, and there he was.' _

_'You said 'shots.'' _

_'Yeah, so?' _

_'We only found one entry wound, only one bullet, no weapon. How many did you hear?' _

_'Two, at least.'_

They were going back in the morning to comb the crime scene for a second bullet. With shaking hands, Sam poured another glass of whiskey and was leaning back to watch a talk show with Buddy when a chiming rang through the house. It took a couple of tries through his brain to register that it was the doorbell echoing down the hallway, and he got up on shaky legs and made his way to the door. Swinging open, it revealed the last person he was prepared to see.

Jess was wearing a black cocktail dress that contrasted beautifully against her golden skin. Her normally perfect curls were flattened from too much time laying against the headrest of a cab, and she looked tired and more than a little tipsy, but her smile was a soft field of flowers in the rain. "Can I come in?" she asked, and Sam forgot how to speak.

"Sure," he finally mumbled and stepped back to let her pass through the door. "Sorry the place's a mess."

"Don't worry about it. I was out with Kia, and she said you were looking a little rough. Thought I ought to stop by and see how you were doing." She scuffed her heels against the carpet. Her thin ankles molding perfectly into the strapped sandals. Sam gestured for her to sit on the couch, and they sat that way for awhile knees brushing while Buddy scratched his back on the living room carpet. "You okay?" she finally asked after they had sat for a long time just pretending to watch whatever meaningless late night show was on.

"Yeah, yeah, I just don't wanna talk about it."

"Ok," she said, but the silence didn't last. "Holding that stuff in isn't good, though." She placed her hand on his arm where it lay across his knee. "You should at least talk to Dean about it."

Sam scoffed. "Yeah, sure. After all the stuff we've seen?"

"Philip was a friend, sort of."

"Maybe," he replied. "I just don't wanna talk about it. Would you like a drink?"

"Sure. A beer if you have one."

After Sam returned from the kitchen with drinks for both of them, he considered taking the armchair but decided against it. Once they were knee to knee on the couch again, he said, "So how are you?"

"I'm good. My parents are coming up next week. They're going to a home décor show at the convention center, so there's that."

"Do y'all get along?"

"Sort of. They're not happy that I took a job at PIU instead of doing something more-" she waved her hands in the air looking for a word. "-meaningful, I guess."

"That sucks."

"Yeah." Ten minutes passed in quiet emptiness. "Listen, Sam, can we just pretend for one minute that we don't work together?" She turned to look him in the eye, blue eyes meeting brown. That stray curl fell in her face again, distracting him.

"What do you mean?"

She was leaning forward, her lips now a couple of inches from his; he watched as they formed the words. "I like you."

Sam closed the difference between them, and she was soft and tender, her lips pliant against his own and then they were leaning back on the couch together, and she tasted like citrusy beer and mint chewing gum, perfect and so familiar. When her hands ran up his shoulders to thread in his hair, it was like coming home. She moved to straddle him, one leg on either side of his. Her black cocktail dress hiked up to the tops of her thighs, and Sam rested his hands there at the edge. Jess rose up to press her breasts against his chest. Her mouth left his to run her tongue around the shell of his ear. "And I like this," she whispered.


	6. Chapter 6

The store front glittered in the sunlight. The sign above the door read _Dean Winchester: Warlock_ and below that in peeling letters _Spells, Consultations, Divinations, and Dream Interpretations._

The man at the hotel's front desk had laughed when he asked for the address and muttered under his breath, "Not another one." Castiel had almost asked what he meant by such a statement, but after getting a whiff of the sharp, cheap liquor mingling with the man's coffee, thought better of it. Humans were complex. He had once seen a Neanderthal bludgeon another to death over a meal. The workings of this planet sometimes eluded him.

The front door was locked; the wards hummed loudly, a tune not unlike that of the Amazon river or the wind through a willow in August. The vibrations were set to a distinct frequency, the sigils carved into the dark wood of the door frame. None of this mattered. The building was not warded against the forces of heaven. The handle clicked softly when turned, and he stepped into the shop with ease. The air heavy with dust motes and spirit energy; there was a ghost nearby then. A bell rang in the loft, alerting the owner to his presence, but Castiel was too immersed in his surroundings to care. Shelves stacked with books lined the walls; a high table ran the length of one. The surface was littered with half-empty jars of grave dirt and poppy seed and dried chicken feet. Drawings of runes, a map of Chicago, and what looked like a family tree spanning millennia were tacked above it.

A sound behind him of soft feet on floorboards, he turned and met the eyes of a disheveled man in flannel pajama bottoms. On his left breast above his heart, there was an anti-possession symbol tattooed in solid black lines. In his hands, a glint of silver.

"Hey, buddy. We're closed." His voice was angry and heavy with sleep.

Castiel squinted the eyes of his vessel, taking in the image. "You are Dean Winchester?"

The silver inched up further until it was almost parallel with the man's thigh. Castiel could make out the short barrel of the gun. He found himself watching the muscles in the arms clench and unclench as the man tried to decide what to do. Out in the street, a car horn honked, a taxi angry that another had cut in front of him. The driver's wife was cheating on him with the butcher.

"Yeah. Normally I'd ask who you were, but I really don't give a shit, man. I'm closed on Sundays, and I have no idea how you got in here. So why don't you just go out the door you came in, and nobody gets hurt." The spirit energy shifted; a soul lurked on his right concealed by a shelf of frog's eyes.

"My name is Castiel Novak."

"Novak, that guy working with Sam?" Dean shifted from one foot to the other, holding the gun loosely at his side now. The weight in his legs distributed strangely, and Castiel wondered how that affected his balance.

"Yes. Your brother called me in as a consultant on the case."

"Uh-huh. That still doesn't explain what you're doing here or how you broke my wards."

"Detective Winchester believes that the case is linked with the Other Realm in some way. A likely explanation given the nature of the artifacts being stolen-"

"I've told Sam everything I know about the case. Listen, man. I've got a hangover, and the fact that you don't blink creeps me the fuck out. Let's do this some other time." Dean turned to climb the stairs again. "Put the wards back up on your way out."

"Did you have sexual relations with Dennis Subtle?" Dean tensed. This was the wrong thing to ask. When Dean turned back to face Castiel, he looked wary.

"What?"

"Your relationship with Dennis Subtle, it's why I am here." Dean came down the stairs and stopped an arm's length away from Castiel. He smelled faintly of whiskey and cigarette smoke, and his gait was strange for a man, a movement of hips not unlike the rotation of smaller solar systems.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Castiel met Dean's gaze, confused, and repeated slowly, "My name is Castiel Novak. I work with your brother Sam."

"No, see, it doesn't work like that," Dean said, pulling back the hammer of the pistol. "You break into my store at the crack of dawn asking me about my sex life. I gotta get a little bit more than a name, sweetheart."

"What would you like to know?"

The spirit now shimmered in a spot behind Dean's left ear. Castiel could hear the faint sound of laughter like it might have been two buildings over. "How you got in here for starters."

"Your warding is incomplete. The pine decreases the latent potency of the spell, and the Swahili word for harm is _madhara_." The spirit's laughter rang in the air. He could just make out the outline of a man.

"Never had problems before," Dean complained.

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," Castiel replied calmly.

"So why are you here, Agent Novak?"

"To ascertain the nature of your relationship with Dennis Subtle and how it relates to the Other Realm."

Dean sighed, a heavy noise like the weight that rested on his brother's shoulders, and reached his left hand up to twist at an amulet around his neck. It was a bronze effigy of some minor horned deity, and he paid it little mind. "I don't know how you know about that, but there's nothing going on with Dennis and me. Just one night, you know?" Castiel did not, but Dean was not seeking an answer; he felt sure. At least, not an answer to that question. "You're not going to leave, are you?"

"I have been sent here to-"

"Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first 15 times. Suit bullshit. Listen if you're going to hang around, I guess I'll be forced to make coffee. This hangover's not the only thing got me backed into a corner."


	7. Chapter 7

Jessica woke up with the distinct impression that she had recently made some regrettable life decisions. She was naked and sweating, sandwiched between her boss and the back cushions of his broken down couch. Where her hand was stretched up above her, an old golden retriever was licking it and staring at her with judgmental eyes. To top it all off, her stomach was insistently informing her that whatever she ate last night had no intentions of staying down. This was definitely not her finest moment.

Sam Winchester had always been a problem. When she first got the job at PIU, his sweet brown eyes had been a major distraction. He brought her coffee in the morning; at first because he said she was new and didn't remember the machine was perpetually broken, but after a few months, he stopped making an excuse. One latte and one green tea with honey. Every morning like clockwork.

Aside from Kia, he was the only one she enjoyed talking to in the office, the only one whose meaningless chatter didn't drive her up a wall. He hadn't said anything, but she was pretty sure Sam was the one who saved Kia's job when she broke up with Charlie, threw himself under the bus to save her from the Chief's wrath. She'd bet anything that's why PIU was in this mess now, why this case was so important. It made her head hurt to think about it.

Now here she was trying to figure out how to extricate herself from the situation with as little damage as possible. She wrapped her hands around the back of the couch and started to wiggle out of Sam's grasp. Standing, she gently stepped onto the arm and off into the floor. Sam sighed in his sleep, shifting closer to where she used to be. Buddy whined at her, waving his yellow paw above him.

"Shh, it's okay." She reached over to scratch him behind the ears while she scanned the room for her clothes. The black cocktail dress and lacy bra she had worn last night were tossed on top of what looked suspiciously like half the files from the office. Damn, he needed to get out more. She hadn't thought about it last night, but the place did scream workaholic. The files stacked on the kitchen table, the desk in the corner, the floor; the take-out containers on top of those; the acoustic guitar by the bookshelf with a layer of dust on it two inches thick. The bookshelf was where she finally found her panties, hooked over a copy of Clarence Darrow's _The Story of My Life_ that looked like it hadn't been touched for a couple of years.

She was just about to head for her purse when she heard Sam sleepily mutter, "Jess?"

"Hey. I was just about to call a cab. Chief wanted me to run some numbers at the office."

"On Sunday?" he asked, and then immediately seemed to regret it. She could see the beginnings of a headache forming in the crease in his forehead. He knew she was lying. The whole damn block probably knew she was lying.

"Yeah, it's about the 5th and Main shooting."

"Oh, ok," he paused for a minute processing this. He was the only man she knew who could make a hangover look good. "I can drive you, if you want. I've got to go by the office anyway. We could drive by Ollie's, get some breakfast."

Jessica winced. Leave it to Sam Winchester to run the gambit of guilt the morning after. "No thanks. I've got to stop by my apartment and take a shower, get a change of clothes." She gestured to the dress that she'd mercifully had time to put on.

"Right. At least, let me drop you off there. A cab across town on Sunday's going to cost an arm and leg." He stood up and walked to the bathroom, effectively ending the discussion. From her vantage point by the bookshelf, Jessica could see where she had dug her nails into his tight little ass last night. _Classy._

The ride across town went about as well as could be expected. Sam made no mention of last night, nor did he suggest again stopping at Ollie's, the little diner down the corner from his house that served a mean Southwestern omelet on Sunday morning.

They rode in uncomfortable silence, listening to the Eagle's _Greatest Hits_, and when Sam pulled his Honda Accord up outside of her apartment building, she couldn't scramble out of the car fast enough. She turned around to tell him a hasty "Goodbye" and slammed the door on "Hotel California" and the image of his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

* * *

Bobby Singer had been dead for approximately three centuries; in that time, he'd been passed around more than a hooker on dollar night. His skull was cursed. He knew it; for the most part, they knew it. Dean had certainly known it. It had been his grandfather, Samuel Campbell who had laid the curse in the first place. Warlocks were cocky bastards, and every last one had thought that he was something special. That he'd be the one to hold onto Bobby because he was too goddamn powerful to be defeated. Bobby Singer had a string of dead masters stretched out behind him for a mile. _Idjits._

Dean Winchester, though, that one was a piece of work. He kept Bobby on a shelf in the closet next to a 5 foot glass bong that Bobby had considered knocking to the ground more than once in a fit of rage. Dean would lock him up in a curse box for that. He'd already threatened to do it.

Some days, he was every bit Samuel Campbell's grandson. A spiteful little bastard with a hand for dark magic and manipulation. Today… today he was Mary's son through and through. The dumbass.

If Special Agent Novak was human, Bobby would eat rock salt and iron shavings everyday for a month. The man glowed like Chernobyl after the explosion, and he'd be damned if he could identify just what wasn't right about the guy's aura. They'd had some weirdos in here before; hell, Dennis Subtle's aura had looked like a grainy 20's film, grey and fuzzy, the colors bleeding into one another.

Agent Novak was another story entirely. His aura shone bright, clear, sharp. The heat from him made it hard to land, to focus his energy in the store. He lurked upstairs in the loft until the damn man cooled enough to get close. His other form, the human one, at first looked unimposing, but then again, most dangerous things in the world of magic are at first glance unimposing. He was an Eastern European man, tan and dark and lean, dressed in a too big blue suit with a crooked tie and a beige trench coat, but his eyes were an icy blue, and they followed Dean's every move around the room.

"Anything in your coffee?" The boy hadn't bothered to put on a shirt; he was so damn predictable. After the coffee started brewing, he got a predatory look and leaned against the dirty Formica counter with his thumb in a pocket of his pants, pulling them down enough to offer his narrow hips out for Agent Novak's inspection. He might as well have been flirting with a stone. Novak's expression didn't change.

"No."

"Ok." The two stood in silence for a moment while Dean poured two cups of coffee. Black and one with a little kick. "Nothing like a little hair of the dog."

"I was unaware you had a dog," Novak said. His dark brows furrowed in confusion.

"Nevermind. "

After a minute or two of standing awkwardly in the center of the room with his steaming mug of coffee, Novak said, "You were telling me about Dennis Subtle and the Other Realm?"

"What about it?" Dean asked nonchalantly.

"What is the nature of your relationship with Dennis Subtle?"

Dean stared at the scuffed pine boards and traced the rim of his coffee. "I met him in a bar somewhere out by the gate. On this side. We had a couple of drinks, came back here and had a few more. That was it. One night." He shrugged. "Nothing major."

_Idjit._ Bobby had spent this interaction working out how to tell Dean to shut his trap. A pretty face made his mouth run off its rails. That had been the problem with the Jewish boy, his big brown eyes. _What was his name?_ Aaron. His golem had wrecked half the street while Dean was upstairs with his pants around his ankles.

That's not even talking about the damn Cajun vampire. What a wreck that was and was still proving to be.

"Is there any way that Subtle could be involved with the robberies?"

"Anything's possible. I really don't know the guy."

"But it is likely that the thief is associated with the Other Realm?" the other man growled. His voice, normally deep, dropped with anger. Bobby watched Dean shiver, a small motion that went unnoticed.

"Probably. But that doesn't explain why the perp would want such low level stuff. It would take forever to get enough juice to do anything that way."

"There is a governing authority in this Other Realm? The White Council?"

Dean hesitated. "Yeah, kind of."

"They must be questioned. You mentioned a gate?" Dean's face went from half-interested to full defensive in a matter of seconds.

"A gate between the mortal and immortal realms. It's a separate dimension, yeah. But you can't just come and go as you please."

"We will set up a meeting."

"Like hell, man. The White Council tells me how high to jump, not the other way around. You can't just go barging in, guns blazing."

_Finally_, Bobby thought reaching out to feel the electric current in the walls and chose that moment to blow the lights.


End file.
